Tag: HollywoodReporter

Sutton Foster charmed an appreciative audience on Saturday night at The Soraya in Northridge, California, with a nearly two-hour performance filled with show tunes and classics, backed by the Pacific Jazz Orchestra — with a surprise appearance by her romantic partner, Hugh Jackman.

Foster kicked off the show by introducing a few folks, including her music director and collaborator, Michael Rafter, who was on piano during the night, and Pacific Jazz Orchestra conductor Chris Walden. She then noted the importance and value of live shows: “We are all live humans, and this is a live orchestra, and you are a live audience. And we are so lucky that we get to gather and celebrate live music,” she said, to applause from the audience.

The Tony-winner sang several Cole Porter songs, including “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” from Anything Goes and “Don’t Look at Me That Way” (“It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites,” she said of the latter). She also sang Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” which she noted she’d performed a dance number to when she was young. Marc Shaiman arranged the version she sang, which was based on a Bette Midler rendition, and Foster revealed that Shaiman connected her with Midler, who gave her approval to use that arrangement, much to Foster’s delight.

Foster also shared stories of her 9-year-old daughter, Emily (“She’s my favorite person that I’ve ever met”), and segued into urging the audience to live in the moment before singing “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” She also shared a funny description of her dad, who loves the Weather Channel and the Atlanta Braves, apparently tracks her flights and says humorous things to her, like: “You know, you can really tell when someone else does your hair and makeup.”

While Foster’s singing chops are nearly superhuman, she did have a moment that showed her more endearingly human side just before intermission. She ended the first “act” with “Anything Goes” from Anything Goes, noting that she knew “only one way to and an act one, and it’s with this song.” However, just a few bars into the song, she noted she had “this thing in my throat” and asked Walden and the musician to pause the music.

“I could feel it coming on, you know that thing when you get like a tickle in the back of your throat,” she told the audience, noting the moment was unplanned. “It feels super daunting to sing this song anyway, but not like this. … I’ve never had to do that, but I’m really glad I stopped. This is a lesson. It is OK to stop. I’ve got young performers here [in the audience]. You know what? it’s just a show.”

During the second half of the show, Foster performed a mash-up of “If I Were a Bell” from Guys and Dolls and “Singin’ in the Rain” from the musical of the same name as well as Duke Ellington’s “I Like the Sunrise,” among others.

But it was during “A Doodlin’ Song” that Jackman came out onstage, much to the delight of the crowd. After Foster sang the lyrics, “Why don’t you join the group? It’s better than being a party-poop,” Jackman then joined in, to loud applause. The couple, who have been dating for nearly two years, engaged in some fun onstage banter: “What are you doing?” she asked him. “You said you wanted me to join the group,” he replied. “No, you’re supposed to stay backstage? … Why do you have a microphone?” she asked him. “It’s 2026; everybody has a microphone,” he quipped.

After the song was over, Foster began, “So now that you’re onstage … ” to which he joked: “Yeah, do you want five or six numbers from me?” Jackman continued: “Well, I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but we sang this, and we’re gonna sing a song that we sang together many or a couple of times.”

Indeed, Jackman did stay to perform for another song — a complete surprise to the audience as it wasn’t listed in the program — with Foster. That song, “A Million Dreams,” from Jackman’s 2017 film The Greatest Showman, was something the couple workshopped together 12 years ago. “It took eight years for The Greatest Showman to be built, and I was a part of two of the workshops,” Foster said. “It was many years ago, so this is a song that we did sing together and we would love to sing it for you tonight.”

In a sweet moment, Jackman gave Foster a kiss before departing the stage. “I don’t know how we recover from that, so we’re just gonna end the show now,” Foster quipped of Jackman’s cameo. She thanked Jackman for coming out onstage with her “and singing and for getting my daughter Taco Bell today.”

Foster then sang “Meantime” before being given a standing ovation. She indulged the crowd in one last bonus tune: “Till There Was You,” from The Music Man. That musical, of course, had a revival on Broadway that debuted in 2022 and starred Foster and Jackman. The crowd happily obliged her request to sing along.

Foster’s performance kicked off The Soraya’s 2026-27 season, which marks its 16th season overall, and the first under new executive and artistic director Chad Hilligus. See the full schedule.

The sixth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival has been postponed, the event’s Foundation has confirmed.

A note released to press on Monday explains that this year’s installment, originally set for Dec. 3-12 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has been pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2027.

It comes as the entire region deals with ongoing military tension amid the U.S.-Israeli-Iran war, with the threat of missile and drone strikes active and Saudi Arabia dealing with targeted attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis.

The decision follows “a comprehensive review of a range of considerations relating to the timing of the next edition, including the logistical requirements involved in staging an international event of this scale,” said the statement.

“It reflects the Foundation’s commitment to ensuring the Festival takes place at the right time and under the right conditions to deliver the experience for which the Red Sea International Film Festival has become known,” it continued. “As part of this continued commitment, the Foundation will introduce year-round programming at Culture Square in Historic Jeddah beginning in November 2026, establishing it as an ongoing destination for film screenings, cultural events and specialised film-industry programmes.”

Organizers have vowed that the festival will return in 2027 with a “renewed vision and a programme that continues to celebrate cinema and filmmakers from Saudi Arabia, the region and around the world.”

The Red Sea Film Festival has gone from strength to strength in recent years and funnelled much of its investment into attracting Hollywood A-listers to Jeddah, as well as its Red Sea Fund, Red Sea Labs and wider initiatives, which will continue to operate within the Foundation’s “year-round ecosystem.” Among the attendees last year were Michael Caine, Johnny Depp, Sean Baker, Juliette Binoche, Adrien Brody, Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Alba and Queen Latifah.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico are suing the Trump administration after the White House revoked their press credentials, effectively banning them from the White House complex and making it a challenge to cover the President and his staff.

“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the three news outlets said in a statement early Monday morning. “Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

In fact, CNN had been slated to be the primary TV press pool Monday, a day in which President Trump is slated to fly to New York for meetings with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

In their lawsuit (led by famed First Amendment litigator Ted Boutros), the news outlets argue that Trump’s decision was in profound conflict with the law.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the suit states. “Presidents from the earliest days of the Republic have disagreed with and complained about the tenor and content of press coverage of their administrations. But as the Supreme Court has recognized, the First Amendment, including its guarantee of a free press, reflects “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” The suit states quoting a passage from the landmark case, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).

“And the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public,” it continues. “No official can deprive Plaintiffs of those interests on a whim—with no notice, no process, and no warning—as the President did here.”

Trump announced his ban in a post Friday, causing some confusion in the White House as crews from the outelts remained onsite. However, on Saturday morning journalists from all three outlets trying to enter the White House complex found that their credentials had been revoked.

In an Oval Office appearance, Trump said that the decision followed cumulative coverage over the past few years, and wasn’t driven by any story in particular.

“The President repeated his straightforward rationale for targeting these three news organizations, calling it ‘wrong’ to ‘allow people to write purposely negative stories,’” the lawsuit recounts. “The President complained about coverage he considers ‘one-sided’ and ‘never good,’ and at one point even referred to his own unprecedented act as the ‘ban on the free press.’”

He also suggested that he knew his move would end up being litigated, suggesting that the outcome would depend on the judge that gets the cse.

In his first term the White House banned CNN correspondent Jim Acosta from the White House, but a judge ordered his pass returned, citing First Amendment protections. The AP had also sued after it was barred from covering certain events after its style guide declined to refer to the body of water as the Gulf of America.

Kit Harington is feeling warmer — a bit — towards the idea of reprising his iconic fan-favorite role of Jon Snow.

The actor — who’s set to return to HBO in the company’s upcoming Harry Potter series — told the Happy Sad Confused podcast Monday that he actually feels more comfortable with the idea of reprising the reluctant Game of Thrones warrior than he did in the past.

The topic was raised when Harington was asked about HBO’s Snow spinoff sequel that was developed several years ago and then shelved.

“We developed it two years or so,” Harington said. “I still think there’s a world in which something could work. I wouldn’t have gone into it in the first place if I didn’t. But I was very insistent at the start — as was HBO and George R.R. Martin — of like: ‘If we don’t find the right thing, let’s not do it. It’s much better if we don’t.’ After a little while of of thinking about it — it kind of was me — [I said], ‘This isn’t quite the right [story].’”

Continued Harington: “[But] now I’ve gone and done all these other things and now I feel more comfortable with that character and that world again and where it sits in my life.”

THR broke the news of the Snow development in 2022. In our cover story profile of Martin in January, we reported the initial idea was a tale of Snow living alone as a broken man with PTSD, having chased off his direwolf Ghost and thrown away his sword Longclaw. Harington wanted Jon to eventually die and to avoid being a hero.

The story echoed, in some respects, Harington’s personal struggles — entering rehab following an intense shooting experience on Thrones. Last year, a new writer (Quoc Dang Tran from Drops of God) came aboard to attempt to revive the sequel idea, possibility shifting the drama to the Mediterranean-like land of Essos.

Yet it was another franchise headed to HBO that helped Harington with his sobriety struggles — Harry Potter. Harington told the podcast that the Potter audiobooks were helpful in the wake of ditching alcohol. “My brain is incredibly busy, especially at night, and I’ve always found going to bed very difficult like and my brain doesn’t turn off,” he said. “When I got sober that got especially bad. So I started listening to Harry Potter audio books, and now they’re the thing I listen to every night.”

Harington was cast as Gilderoy Lockhart in the Full Cast Audio editions of the Potter books, which were released last year. Last month, Harington was cast to join HBO’s live-action Harry Potter series, where he’ll play the dangerously narcissistic Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in season two.

“Lockhart is addicted to himself,” Harington quips. “It’s just a tiny step to my left [for me].”

Harington is currently promoting his role in a four-part TV adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities on MGM+, which was released Sept. 6.

John Oliver took a jab at “soon-to-be business daddy” David Ellison on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight.

The HBO show’s host did a deep dive into UnitedHealthCare record of denying customers much-needed health care, starting off by noting that Luigi Mangione is due to be sentenced in December for killing CEO Brian Thompson, an act that many people rejoiced amid their frustration with the company.

Oliver gave several examples of patients who were denied crucial health care, including a cancer patient whose parents ultimately had to fork over $95,000 for due to UHC’s denials.

Here he took the opportunity to take a jab at Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, which is in the process of trying to get regulator approval to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, the current parent company of HBO.

“Now in the end her parents paid $95,000 out of pocket to cover the treatment, which in happy news did actually work, but having access to wealthy parents just cannot be the system to get badly needed healthcare, even if it is apparently the system that lets you be in charge of HBO,” Oliver said, showing a photo of Ellison.

“Yeah, my soon-to-be business daddy has a literal business daddy,” he added, as the image zoomed out to show Ellison with his father Larry, the billionaire owner of tech giant Oracle, and the man who has agreed to personally backstop the $40.4 billion in equity financing connected to the Paramount-WBD deal.

“And to be very clear,” Oliver continued, “I deeply respect that and I would never make fun of you for it, unlike that pesky Stephen Colbert.”

The Hollywood Reporter can unveil a never-before-seen clip from San Sebastián competition feature What Remains.

Turkish filmmaker Yeşim Ustaoğlu returns to the Basque festival following her Golden Shell win in 2008 for Pandora’s Box, which also earned lead actress Tsilla Chelton the Silver Shell for best actress.

With What Remains, premiering on Sept. 22, the prolific director tells the story of Elif, a poet who breaks free from her suffocating life to “reconnect with her inner voice and conscience and allow her creativity to flow again.” A plot synopsis continues: “As she begins to question the conventions of family, identity and the meaning of life, her journey towards self-discovery challenges those around her to reconsider their own lives — taking the whole family in a new direction.”

Turkish star Öykü Karayel plays the protagonist, with Metin Akdülger co-starring as Mehmet, Ali Kayra Kul as Selim and İlyas Salman as Mustafa.

The clip released through THR on Monday — which you can watch below — shows a painful conversation between Elif and Mehmet, where he puts to her: “Do you even love me anymore?”

Ustaoğlu said What Remains began to take shape “precisely when I started asking this question again.” She said that the feature is a personal project: “It grew out of a desire to break free from a sense of suffocation and weariness — one I had begun to witness not only in myself, but in the people around me. A suffocation that traps our lives in a systemic cycle, standardises us, grinds us down, and eventually drains our ability to create. The only way out seemed to be to stop everything, step outside it all, leave, look, and try to understand.”

The Match Factory is handling global sales on What Remains. Mubi, which owns The Match Factory and is a co-producer on the film, has acquired all rights in Turkey. The movie is a Ustaoglu Film production from Turkey, with Luxembourg’s Tarantula, Bulgaria’s RFF International and France’s Cite Films. Mubi is a co-producer alongside Pak Ventures and Yuvision, with What Remains made in collaboration with Istos Film.

The 74th San Sebastián Film Festival runs Sept. 18-26. Watch the clip from What Remains below.

It’s no longer a secret that Basque cinema is getting some overdue time in the spotlight.

Thanks to an almighty production boom in the region, powered by a whopping 60 percent tax rebate (increasing to 70 percent for projects shot in the Basque language, Euskera), the Basque Country’s film and TV output has never looked so healthy. And the proof is in the pudding: The Hollywood Reporter took an in-depth look at the record 45 nominations for Basque projects at this year’s Goyas, also known as “the Spanish Oscars,” after a decade of concentrated investment.

With San Sebastián’s profile rising exponentially every September, the people working behind the scenes to make sure Basque cinema is capitalizing on every single success are already pushing the next generation of original voices into the festival hot seat. At the 74th edition, a total of 31 titles with Basque production ties — including David Pérez Sañudo’s hotly anticipated competition title The Harvester — will screen across the festival’s many selections. Twelve are documentaries, marking a real moment for Basque docs at this installment. But with award statuettes firmly on the mantel, the Basque region now sets itself the task of sustaining this run of form long-term. The answer? Find and nurture the next generation’s emerging talent.

For example, the debut feature from Nitya López Saitua in Zinemira, Family Drill, a project fuelled by word-of-mouth buzz across northern Spain. “He’s been doing great as a first AD and second AD for so many years,” begins Mar Izquierdo, coordinator of Zineuskadi, a non-profit operating at the epicentre of the Basque film and TV industry, “and everyone was like, ‘But he’s got it. He’s not going to be an AD.’ And we really do hope that with this film, everyone else will be able to see it.”

Izquierdo’s company works strategically to promote the Basque audiovisual sector, partnering with every production output in the region, working alongside the Basque government’s culture department and public broadcaster ETB Basque to help facilitate co-productions, distribution and sales deals, as well as earning key projects coveted slots at the globe’s biggest film festivals and plotting awards campaigns.

One young talent they’ve thrown their support behind is the 30-year-old López, who was in such a hurry to capture the creative process practically spilling out of his head that Family Drill — a co-production with Mubox Studio, who are distributing the film — was shot with just 10 people across three days in his childhood home on the Basque coast. He tells THR: “Iraia Elias and Miguel Garcés [play] my mom and dad and we recreate my parents’ relationship, [leading up to] the last argument that broke the relationship when I was four years old.” It is as deeply personal as it sounds. “This was a way to recreate memories that I didn’t have,” says López, firmly out of AD mode and in full-fledged director mode. “And I think it was very important to free-work on the scenes, without a script.”

López’s determination to start the shoot before he lost that powerful sense of direction in chronicling his parents’ split speaks to the strength of the Basque Country’s storytelling. “We have really great directors here in the Basque Country, and internationally they are [getting] more recognized,” continues the first-time filmmaker. “I have the opportunity of working with many of them, and I love their work, and I’m very proud to be part of the next generation making movies. I think that we are in a great moment [compared to] making movies here 20 years ago.” It used to be the case that, “if [creatives] want to direct, they must go to other places, go to Madrid,” he explains. Here in the region López calls home, there have never been so many reasons to put roots down.

One of his countrymen, Javier Giner, also arrives at the San Sebastián Film Festival with his first movie. This Solitude is premiering in the New Directors section. A debut feature it may technically be, but director-writer Giner has known global success with the International Emmy-winning I, Addict series, based on his own life and struggle with drug addiction. With This Solitude, Giner, who grew up in Bilbao, reacts to the unprecedented impact of that show. “I, Addict was a huge hit in Spain and it dealt with a part of my life where I suffered [with] the illness of addiction,” he says. “After that explosive TV series where I presented myself to the world with no mask, I needed to go back to my childhood, to a very intimate place, a very silent place — much smaller than I, Addict.”

Giner suddenly found himself shooting where he grew up, Bilbao, back to the places and locations that he says “have an emotional resonance” for him. The film, starring Oriol Pla, Marina Salas, Gemma Martínez, Kai Etxaniz and Itziar Lazkano, is a Balance Media Entertainment production, with The Embassy TV and Basajaun Filmak as co-producers, and Filmax handling distribution. “We meet two young people who live in Bilbao, Leo and Lorea, and we follow them through the grief process after they break a five-year-long relationship,” Giner explains. “And I use that journey as an excuse to talk about a lot of things like class, the housing [crisis]. […] Those moments in our lives everyone goes through, in a sense of reconstructing yourself because nothing works around you and you don’t quite grasp who you are [or] what you want.”

He speaks with as much gusto as López, who also, in some way, depicts his Basque youth on screen — a common theme running through many of these films — and seeing fellow regional filmmakers make a name for themselves in recent years only speaks to the urgency of the stories coming out of the Basque Country, according to Giner. “To be honest, it fills me with pride,” he says. “I think movies and filmmakers, when they’re honest with their upbringing and their roots, there’s something very beautiful in it. As an audience member, I love when I discover London through Mike Leigh’s eyes, for example, or I discover parts of the world that I don’t know about through some filmmaker’s eyes.”

Giner says that in the last 10 years, especially, Basque stories have been “very important to tell.” He continues: “I jokingly call This Solitude my very Basque movie, because there’s a reflection of identity in the movie… It tells [you] a lot about the place. And the Basque Country, it’s beautiful. It has beautiful landscapes. It has great possibilities. It is filled with really talented people, both in front of and behind the camera. So, I mean, it fills me with total pride if someone considers me the representation of the Basque Country at this year’s festival.” He is admittedly still pinching himself that he’s here: “It’s incredible. To be honest, a lot of my film education has to do with the San Sebastián Film Festival because when I was a teenager, I used to go from Bilbao to San Sebastián and watch movies.”

López concurs that Basque cinema has its own culture, but also lauds the region’s directors for still being able to make “really universal movies.” And Izquierdo says the variation across the projects this year is particularly exciting for her. “The best thing is we are covering every possible subject,” she says. “We have a biopic for a musical group. We have culinary cinema. We have a French co-production, a coming-of-age [film] within a school. We have everything.”

And naturally, the festival also serves as something of a springboard for those nail-biting awards runs. “It’s the most important film festival in Spain and one of the [category] A film festivals in the world,” says Giner about what a premiere in San Sebastián can do for one’s Goya hopes. “So it’s definitely a great trampoline. But it’s something that I don’t want to think about because I don’t want to get lost in that narrative and it take away from the pure pleasure of putting a film out there and sharing it with the public.”

Of course, it’s not just Basque filmmakers travelling to shoot here. Taiwan’s Tsai Ming-liang is presenting Dust in San Sebastián, a short film and exhibition piece as part of his Walker series, which is a Basque co-production. Nanni Moretti made the most of those tempting tax incentives, too, with his last movie It Will Happen Tonight filming in the region before its recent Venice Film Festival premiere, and the Catherine Zeta-Jones starrer Kill Jackie — releasing Oct. 2 — shot extensively across Bilbao. “It’s not only that we continue to have emerging talent, but we are able to co-produce and have A-class films as minority co-producers,” beams Izquierdo.

But she maintains that the most rewarding part of her job is platforming the next generation of Basque filmmakers, who are carving out a path by leading with instinct, leaning into personal storytelling, and celebrating each milestone. “The big names know how to [make] their way through the other festivals,” says Izquierdo. “But some of them need this in order to get the next one — it’s a window of opportunity for them, because otherwise maybe their documentary or small film would be just another small fish in the pond. Here,” she adds, “they get the chance on the big screen, where exhibitors and distributors will be able to notice them.”

The 2026 San Sebastián International Film Festival runs Sep. 18-26.

Presley Gerber, the son of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, died Sunday, according to multiple reports. He was 27.

“The family is asking for privacy during this very difficult and painful time,” a rep for the family told The Hollywood Reporter.

A rep told TMZ that Presley died earlier Sunday. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, he died at a rehab facility.

Presley also is survived by a sister, model-actress Kaia Gerber, 25, who most recently appeared in Ryan Murphy’s The Shards.

TMZ is reporting that an autopsy has not yet been completed. The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to reps for the family.

Presley began modeling in his teens alongside Kaia. He was signed by IMG Models at age 15 and made his runway debut in a Moschino show in Los Angeles before appearing on the runway for Dolce & Gabbana in Milan and in a Calvin Klein campaign.

Presley has had trouble with the law. In 2019, he was arrested and charged with a DUI. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to complete a DUI program and two days’ community service.

He also has opened up about struggling with his mental health and depression.

In 2020, he got a tattoo on his face that read “MISUNDERSTOOD” but later seemingly had it removed.

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Amid reports that Paramount is in “advanced talks” to settle the antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general led by California against the company’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, Mark Ruffalo is urging Rob Bonta to “not cave.”

“Don’t you dare @AGRobBonta, do not cave. 5,670 film makers put their necks on the line for you to fight this merger. Another 75,000+ and counting have signed to tell you not to concede in just 3 weeks,” the actor wrote on X. “You work for the people — the very people who will be hurt if you let this lousy deal filled with empty promises go forward.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Paramount and the states are closing in on a deal to settle the lawsuit.

Ruffalo included a link to sign a petition in support of the merger being blocked. “Please sign to send a message to the AG’s and Paramount. Reject the deal. The people don’t want it!” he added.

The Task star has been very candid about his opposition to the merger; he testified against the merger to a Senate hearing and signed an open letter alongside many actors also against Paramount’s potential takeover of Warner Bros.

In an August Instagram post, he noted Oracle’s (founded by Larry Ellison, the father to David Ellison) ties to the Israeli military, sharing a clip of former Oracle chief Safra Catz talking about Oracle’s tech at the Israeli-American Council National Summit in 2024 as it related to Israel’s war effort in Gaza. In the video, the executive spoke about “profoundly scary technologies” the company built that could be deployed. Ruffalo detailed the war as a “genocide” that “was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

A spokesperson for Paramount shared a statement in response to Ruffalo, calling his remarks “antisemitic.”

“We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” the statement read in part. “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”

The Avengers actor refuted the statement made by a Paramount rep, writing on X, “The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest.”

On July 13, the states filed a lawsuit alleging that the merger would combine two of Hollywood’s top five studios, which would lead to higher prices, less movies in theaters and a decrease in the variety and quality of content. “There is no debate here: This merger will snuff out competition, drive up prices, diminish content quality, and produce fewer movies and shows each year,” said California Attorney General Bonta at a press conference at the time.

The filing of the suit led to a temporary pause on the merger, ruled by U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín on July 20; that temporary restraining order was subsequently extended on July 23. One day later, Paramount agreed to hold off on the acquisition until the court makes a decision of whether or not the deal violates antitrust laws.